POST CIVIL WAR
Chapter 5
MIGRATION
FROM THE
EAST
• Post War Migration:
– Settlers came in by the millions.
– Anglo-Americans
– Over 2 million between 1870-1890
– Europe
• Scandinavia, Germany, Ireland,
Russia, Czechoslovakia.
– Came for Gold and Silver
– Farm and Grazing lands
– Railroad
LAND
POLICIES
• Homestead Act 1862- create new
markets and new outposts for
commercial agriculture.
– Help growing economies
• Timber Culture Act 1873- permitted
homesteaders to receive grants of 160
additional acres if they planted trees on
them.
• Desert Land Act 1877- people could buy
640 acres at 1.25 an acre.
• Timber and Stone Act 1878- applied
non-arable land and sold land at 2.50 an
acre.
LAND
POLICIES
• Made it possible to acquire 1,280
acres of land at little cost.
• Enterprising people got much more.
• Fraud was rampant
• Lumber and mining companied
employed dummy restraints and
other illegal devices to seize millions
of acres of public land.
• 1860’s- territorial governments
were in operation, and statehood
rapidly followed.
LABOR IN THE
WEST
• Farmers, Ranchers, and miners
recruited for a paid labor force.
• Labor shortage- rose wages for
workers.
• Working conditions were tough
• Chinese Immigrants
– Willing to work for lower
wages.
– Work force was divided along
racial lines.
WESTERN
INDUSTRIES
• 3 major industries in the late 19th
century were mining, ranching, and
commercial farming.
– Mining
• Began in 1860
• Mineral strike in 1858
• Possibility of finding gold
attracted 50,000 prospectors.
• Cities would appear and
disappear when the gold ran
out.
WESTERN
INDUSTRIES
• Comstock Lode
– Discovered in Nevada
1859.
– Silver miners came by the
thousands.
• 1874- Gold was found in the
Black Hills
– Prospectors flooded in the
area.
LIFE IN THE
BOOMTOWNS
• Hectic tempo
• Attracted outlaws
• Formed vigilante committees when the
town became intolerable.
• Did not always use the legal system to
bring them to justice.
• Men outnumbered women
• Those who came for gold, stayed and
worked as wage laborers in mines.
• Workers- die d of heatstroke, cave-ins,
or explosions.
• One in every eighty was killed.
CATTLE
RANCHING
• Vast grasslands (Open Range)
• Great Plains area
– Provided free of charge areas to raise
their cattle.
– Railroads- gave birth to the cattle
industry, by giving it access to
markets in the Eastern U.S.
– End of Civil war
• 5 million cattle roamed the
Texas ranges.
• Getting cattle from the range to
the market was difficult.
• Long Drives- cattle could be
driven to distant markets.
– Explosive growth of the cattle
industry.
MARKET
FACULTIES
• Established in Abilene, Kansas
• Cattle Kingdom for many years.
• Mid 1870’s railroads pushed west, and
became overstocked .
– Not enough grass to support the
herds.
– Two severe winters 1886/1887
– One Scorching summer
• Killed hundreds and thousands
of cattle.
– Streams and grass dried up and
long drive cattle kingdom ended.
DISPERSAL
OF INDIAN
TRIBES
WHITE TRIBAL
POLICIES
•
•
•
Traditional Policy
– Regard the tribes as independent nations
and wards of the president at the same
time.
1851– Each tribe was assigned to its own
reservation.
– Divided the tribes
– Left the most desirable land for the
whites.
1867
– Established an Indian Peace Commission.
• Composed of soldiers and civilians.
• Move all the Plains Indians onto two
large reservations.
• One in Oklahoma and Dakotas.
THE INDIAN
WARS
• Fighting occuring all of the time.
• Indian Warriors in traveling parties
attacking wagon trains, stagecoaches, and
ranches.
– Retaliation for earlier attacks on
whites.
• 1864
– Araphao and Cheyenne Indians
camped near Sand Creek Colorado
– Led by Black Kettle
– No hostility against the whites
– Volunteer militia cam and massacred
133 Indians, 105 were women and
children.
– Black Kettle escaped and was killed
four years later by custer!
NORTHERN
PLAINS
• Sioux left their reseveration in protest
– Miners in the black hills
– White officials ordered them back
– Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull
gathered.
– Army- sent to find them and order
them back.
• Led by George A. Custer
• Battle of Little Bighorn
• Surprised Custer and killed 264
of his troops
• 2500 Indians gathered- the
largest in history
• The Army will return the Indians to their
reservations due to the Indians not staying
united.
IDAHO- 1877
• Nez Perce Indians were a small and
peaceful band.
• Younger(Drunk)indians killed four
white settlers in Oregon.
• Nez Perce Leader= Chief Joseph
– Told the tribe to flee to Canada.
– Indians covered 1321 miles in 75
days.
– Caught just short of the border
• “I will fight now more forever”
NEVADA
1890’S
• Paiute Indian named Wovoka
– Inspiried a spiritual awakening
– Emphasized the coming of the
Messiah
– Ghost Dances
– Government Agents watched the
dances in confusion and fear.
– Dec 29, 1890• 7th Calvary rounded up a group
of 350 cold and starving Sioux at
Wounded Knee, South Dakota.
– Fighting broke out
• 40 soldiers and 200 Indians died
• Soldiers turned the machine guns on the
Indians and mowed them down in the
snow.
THE DAWES
ACT
• Congress forces the Indians to become
landowners and farmers in 1887.
• Dawes Act- gave 160 of land to the head
of the family, and 80 acres to a single
adult or orphan, and 40 acres to each
dependent child.
• Adult owners were given citizenship but
could not gain full title to their property
for 25 years.
• Applied to the Western Tribes
BUREAU OF
INDIAN
AFFAIRS
• Tried to move families on to their own
plots of land.
• Took Indian children away from their
families and sent them to boarding
schools- ran by whites.
• Schools were trying to educated them.
– Abandon their tribal ways
– Few Indians were prepared for the
change.
– Eventually the government will
abandon this idea.